Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s visibility and relevance in search engines like Google and Bing. SEO can help you drive more organic traffic, leads, and sales to your website.
However, SEO is not a one-time thing. It requires constant monitoring and updating to keep up with the changing algorithms, user behavior, and competition. That’s why you need to conduct regular SEO audits for your website.
An SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website’s SEO performance and potential. It helps you identify and fix any issues that may be hurting your rankings and conversions. It also helps you discover and leverage any opportunities that may boost your SEO results.
In this blog post, we will show you how to conduct a comprehensive SEO audit for your website in six steps. We will use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) and Google Search Console (GSC) as the main tools for this audit. AWT is a free tool that provides a complete overview of your website’s SEO health and performance. GSC is a free tool by Google that allows you to monitor and troubleshoot your website’s presence on Google.
Let’s get started!
Step 1: Prepare for the SEO audit
Before you start the SEO audit, you need to do some preparation work. This includes:
- Setting up your SEO goals and KPIs
- Setting up AWT and GSC accounts
- Setting up Google Analytics account (optional)
Setting up your SEO goals and KPIs
The first step is to define your SEO goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). This will help you focus your audit on the most important aspects of your SEO strategy and measure your progress and success.
Your SEO goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). For example, your SEO goal could be to increase your organic traffic by 20% in the next six months.
Your SEO KPIs are the metrics that you use to track and evaluate your SEO performance. They should be aligned with your SEO goals and business objectives. For example, some common SEO KPIs are:
- Organic Traffic: The number of visitors that come to your website from search engines
- Organic Conversions: The number of visitors that complete a desired action on your website, such as signing up, buying, or contacting you
- Keyword Rankings: The positions of your website’s pages for the keywords that you target in search engines
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who click on your website’s link in the search results
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who leave your website after viewing only one page
- Page Speed: The time it takes for your website’s pages to load
You can use tools like Google Analytics, AWT, and GSC to track and measure your SEO KPIs.
Setting up AWT and GSC accounts
The next step is to set up your AWT and GSC accounts. These are the tools that you will use to perform and analyze your SEO audit.
To set up your AWT account, you need to:
- Go to Ahrefs Webmaster Tools and sign up for a free account
- Enter your website’s URL and click on + Add project
- Verify your website ownership by following the instructions
- Wait for AWT to crawl your website and generate the reports
To set up your GSC account, you need to:
- Go to Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account
- Click on + Add property and enter your website’s URL
- Verify your website ownership by following the instructions
- Wait for GSC to collect and display the data
Setting up Google Analytics account (optional)
The last step is to set up your Google Analytics account. This is an optional step, but it can help you get more insights into your website’s traffic and user behavior.
To set up your Google Analytics account, you need to:
- Go to Google Analytics and sign in with your Google account
- Click on + Create account and fill in the details
- Copy the tracking code and paste it into your website’s header
- Wait for Google Analytics to start tracking and reporting the data
Step 2: Perform the SEO audit using AWT and GSC
The second step is to perform the SEO audit using AWT and GSC. This is where you will scan your website for any SEO issues and opportunities that may affect your rankings and conversions.
There are three main areas that you need to audit:
- Technical SEO: the aspects of your website that affect its crawlability, indexability, and usability
- On-page SEO: the aspects of your website’s pages that affect their relevance and quality for the keywords that you target
- Off-page SEO: the aspects of your website’s external factors that affect its authority and popularity
Technical SEO audit
A technical SEO audit checks how well your website is optimized for search engines and users. It covers areas such as:
- Site Speed: how fast your website’s pages load
- Mobile-friendliness: how well your website adapts to different screen sizes and devices
- HTTPS: whether your website uses a secure and encrypted connection
- XML Sitemap: whether your website has a file that lists all its pages and helps search engines discover and index them
- Robots.txt: whether your website has a file that tells search engines which pages to crawl and which to ignore
- Duplicate Content: whether your website has pages that have identical or very similar content
- Canonical tags: whether your website uses tags that tell search engines which version of a page to index and avoid duplication
- 404 Errors: whether your website has pages that return a not found status code and frustrate users
- Redirects: whether your website uses temporary or permanent redirects to send users and search engines to a different URL
- Structured Data: whether your website uses code that helps search engines understand and display your content better
To perform a technical SEO audit using AWT, you need to:
- Go to Site Audit and click on your project
- Go to the Overview tab and see the Health Score and the number of errors, warnings, and notices
- Go to the Issues tab and see the list of technical SEO issues and their severity, impact, and affected pages
- Go to the Data Explorer tab and see the detailed information and filters for each technical SEO issue
To perform a technical SEO audit using GSC, you need to:
- Go to Google Search Console and click on your property
- Go to the Index section and see the Coverage and Sitemaps reports
- Go to the Enhancements section and see the Core Web Vitals, Mobile Usability, and other reports
- Go to the Security & Manual Actions section and see the Security Issues and Manual Actions reports
On-page SEO audit
An on-page SEO audit checks how well your website’s pages are optimized for the keywords that you target and the users that you serve. It covers areas such as:
- Keyword Research: whether you have identified and selected the best keywords for your website’s pages
- Content Quality: whether your website’s pages have original, relevant, and engaging content that matches the search intent and satisfies the user needs
- Title tags: whether your website’s pages have unique and descriptive titles that include your target keywords and entice users to click
- Meta Descriptions: whether your website’s pages have concise and compelling summaries that include your target keywords and persuade users to click
- Headings: whether your website’s pages have clear and structured headings that include your target keywords and organize your content
- URL Structure: whether your website’s pages have short and descriptive URLs that include your target keywords and are easy to read and remember
- Internal Links: whether your website’s pages have relevant and helpful links that connect them to each other and improve the user experience and navigation
- Images: whether your website’s pages have optimized images that have relevant file names, alt texts, and sizes
To perform an on-page SEO audit using AWT, you need to:
- Go to Site Audit and click on your project
- Go to the Overview tab and see the On-page SEO score and the number of errors, warnings, and notices
- Go to the Issues tab and see the list of on-page SEO issues and their severity, impact, and affected pages
- Go to the Data Explorer tab and see the detailed information and filters for each on-page SEO issue
To perform an on-page SEO audit using GSC, you need to:
- Go to Google Search Console and click on your property
- Go to the Performance section and see the Search Results and Discover reports
- Go to the URL Inspection tool and see the details of any URL on your website
Off-page SEO audit
An off-page SEO audit examines how your website is perceived and valued by other websites and users. It focuses on aspects such as:
- Backlinks: the links from other websites that point to your website and indicate its authority and popularity
- Link Profile: the quality, quantity, and diversity of the backlinks that your website has
- Link Building: the process of acquiring new and relevant backlinks to your website
- Competitor Analysis: the process of comparing your website’s backlinks and performance with your competitors
To conduct an off-page SEO audit using AWT, you need to:
- Go to Site Explorer and enter your website’s URL
- Go to the Overview report and see the summary of your backlink profile, such as the number of referring domains, backlinks, and organic keywords
- Go to the Backlinks report and see the list of all the backlinks that your website has, along with their metrics, such as the anchor text, the referring page and domain, the Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR) scores, and the traffic and keywords
- Go to the Link Opportunities report and see the list of potential backlinks that your website can get from other websites, based on different methods, such as the broken link building, the unlinked mentions, the competitors’ common backlinks, and the link intersect
Step 3: Analyze and prioritize the SEO issues and opportunities
The third step is to analyze and prioritize the SEO issues and opportunities that you found in the previous step. This will help you create an action plan for fixing and improving your website’s SEO.
To analyze and prioritize the SEO issues and opportunities, you need to consider the following factors:
- Severity: how badly the issue affects your website’s SEO performance and user experience
- Impact: how much the issue or opportunity can improve your website’s SEO performance and user experience
- Effort: how much time and resources it will take to fix the issue or implement the opportunity
Based on these factors, you can assign a priority level to each issue and opportunity, such as high, medium, or low. For example, a high-priority issue could be a page that is not indexed by Google, while a low-priority issue could be a missing alt text for an image.
You can use AWT and GSC to help you with this analysis and prioritization. For example, AWT assigns a severity level to each issue based on its impact on your website’s SEO health. You can also see the number of affected pages and the estimated traffic loss for each issue. GSC shows you the performance metrics for each page, such as impressions, clicks, CTR, and position. You can also see the errors and enhancements for each page.
Step 4: Implement and monitor the SEO improvements
The fourth step is to implement and monitor the SEO improvements based on your action plan. This is where you fix the issues and leverage the opportunities that you identified and prioritized in the previous step.
To implement the SEO improvements, you need to follow the best practices and guidelines for each SEO area. You can use AWT and GSC to help you with this implementation. For example, AWT provides detailed explanations and recommendations for each issue, along with links to relevant resources and tutorials. GSC provides instructions and examples for each error and enhancement, along with links to Google’s documentation and tools.
To monitor the SEO improvements, you need to track and measure the results of your implementation. You can use AWT and GSC to help you with this monitoring. For example, AWT allows you to re-crawl your website and see the changes in your SEO health score and the number of issues. GSC allows you to validate your fixes and see the changes in your coverage and performance reports.
Step 5: Review your backlink profile
The fifth step is to review your backlink profile. Your backlink profile is the collection of links from other websites that point to your website. It is one of the most important factors that affect your website’s authority and rankings.
To review your backlink profile, you need to check the following aspects:
- Backlink Quantity: how many backlinks your website has
- Backlink Quality: how authoritative and relevant the websites that link to your website are
- Backlink Diversity: how varied and natural the sources and types of backlinks your website has
- Backlink Opportunities: how many potential backlinks your website can get from other websites
To review your backlink profile, you can use AWT’s Site Explorer tool. To use it, enter your website’s URL and click on the Overview report. Here, you can see the summary of your backlink profile, such as the number of referring domains, backlinks, and organic keywords. You can also see the Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR) scores, which measure the authority of your website and its pages based on their backlink profiles.
To see more details about your backlink profile, you can click on the Backlinks report. Here, you can see the list of all the backlinks that your website has, along with their metrics, such as the anchor text, the referring page and domain, the DR and UR scores, and the traffic and keywords. You can also use the filters and options to sort and segment your backlinks by various criteria, such as the link type, the platform, the language, and the date.
To see more details about your backlink opportunities, you can click on the Link Opportunities report. Here, you can see the list of potential backlinks that your website can get from other websites, based on different methods, such as the broken link building, the unlinked mentions, the competitors’ common backlinks, and the link intersect. You can also use the filters and options to sort and segment your backlink opportunities by various criteria, such as the DR score, the traffic, and the keywords.
Step 6: Analyze your analytics metrics
The sixth and final step is to analyze your analytics metrics. Your analytics metrics are the data that show how your website’s visitors behave and interact with your website. They can help you understand your website’s performance and user experience, and identify areas for improvement.
To analyze your analytics metrics, you need to check the following aspects:
- Traffic Sources: how your website’s visitors find your website, such as through organic search, social media, referral, direct, or paid
- User Behavior: how your website’s visitors engage with your website, such as the bounce rate, the average session duration, the pages per session, and the exit rate
- User Demographics: who your website’s visitors are, such as their location, language, device, browser, and interests
- Conversion Goals: what actions you want your website’s visitors to take on your website, such as signing up, buying, or contacting you
To analyze your analytics metrics, you can use Google Analytics. To use it, sign in to your Google Analytics account and click on your website’s property. Here, you can see the overview of your website’s analytics metrics, such as the number of users, sessions, pageviews, and conversions. You can also see the breakdown of your traffic sources, user behavior, user demographics, and conversion goals.
To see more details about your analytics metrics, you can click on the different reports in the left menu. Here, you can see the detailed data and charts for each aspect of your analytics metrics, such as the acquisition, the behavior, the audience, and the conversions. You can also use the filters and options to sort and segment your analytics metrics by various criteria, such as the date range, the dimension, the segment, and the comparison.
Conclusion
An SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website’s SEO performance and potential. It can help you identify and fix any issues that may be hurting your rankings and conversions, and discover and leverage any opportunities that may boost your SEO results.
In this blog post, we showed you how to conduct a comprehensive SEO audit for your website in six steps. We covered how to:
- Run a crawl of your website
- Identify organic traffic drops and work out what caused them
- Check for any duplicates of your website
- Find and diagnose indexability issues
- Ensure your site is mobile-friendly
- Benchmark your Core Web Vitals scores
- Reclaim authority by fixing broken pages
- Ensure your sitemap doesn’t have any issues
- Analyze and prioritize the SEO issues and opportunities
- Implement and monitor the SEO improvements
- Review your backlink profile
- Analyze your analytics metrics
We also showed you how to use AWT, GSC, and Google Analytics as the main tools for this audit. These tools can provide you with valuable insights and recommendations for improving your website’s SEO health and performance.
We hope you found this blog post helpful and interesting. If you have any questions/feedback or if you need any help with your SEO audit or strategy, please feel free to Contact Us anytime. We are always happy to help.
Unlock the hidden potential of your digital presence through the lens of an SEO audit. It's not just an analysis; it's the roadmap to elevate your website's visibility, user experience, and success in the online landscape.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a set of practices and strategies aimed at improving a website’s visibility in search engine results, primarily Google, by enhancing its relevance and authority.
SEO is crucial because it helps websites rank higher in search engine results. This increased visibility can lead to more organic (non-paid) traffic, which can be highly targeted and valuable for businesses and website owners.
The key elements of SEO include on-page optimization (e.g., keyword usage, content quality), off-page optimization (e.g., backlinks), technical SEO (e.g., site speed, mobile-friendliness), and user experience.
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An SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of a website’s performance, focusing on factors that impact search engine visibility. It is crucial for identifying areas of improvement to enhance organic search rankings.
The frequency of SEO audits depends on factors like the website’s size, industry, and recent updates. Generally, conducting an audit every six months to a year is recommended.
An SEO audit evaluates on-page elements (title tags, meta descriptions), technical SEO (site structure, URL structure), content quality, backlink profile, mobile-friendliness, and site speed.
On-page SEO refers to optimizing elements on your website’s pages, such as content, title tags, meta descriptions, and headers, to improve their relevance and ranking in search results. Off-page SEO involves activities performed outside your website to improve its authority and reputation. This includes building high-quality backlinks, social media marketing, and influencer outreach.
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They are important because search engines often interpret them as votes of confidence and authority. High-quality, relevant backlinks can boost your website’s search engine ranking.
SEO audits are beneficial for businesses of all sizes. Small businesses can gain insights into local SEO, content optimization, and identify opportunities to improve their online presence.
An SEO audit assesses factors affecting site speed, such as image optimization, server response time, and code efficiency. Recommendations are provided to enhance overall performance.
An SEO audit assesses content quality, relevance, and keyword usage. It helps identify opportunities to create new content, optimize existing content, and align the strategy with search intent.
An audit evaluates the optimization of title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and other on-page elements. It ensures these elements are relevant, concise, and aligned with targeted keywords.
Yes, an SEO audit includes a local SEO assessment, checking the accuracy of NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information, local citations, and Google My Business optimization for better local visibility.
Mobile optimization is crucial for SEO. An audit checks the website’s responsiveness, mobile page speed, and user experience on various devices, ensuring it meets mobile-friendly standards.
Implementing SEO audit recommendations involves collaboration between web developers, content creators, and SEO specialists. Prioritize and execute changes systematically to ensure a comprehensive improvement.